HUNTSVILLE, Alabama - One of the Rocket City's biggest churches is expanding its presence in fast-growing western Madison County.

Willowbrook Baptist Church recently bought a failed subdivision on Jeff Road from Cadence Bank. The 46.6-acre property is on the edge of the Huntsville city limits near Capshaw Road.

Willowbrook's main campus is on Bailey Cove Road in south Huntsville, but the church opened a Madison branch three years ago in a former Wilson Lumber showroom near the U.S. 72 West-Slaughter Road intersection.

Madison campus Pastor Kevin Perry said the church averages about 340 people for Sunday services and intends to eventually build a permanent home on the Jeff Road land.

"We'd been looking for property along U.S. 72 for probably two or three years, but there's very little available," Perry said Thursday. "The land on Jeff Road had the right sales price on it, and we saw potential with it being such a major thoroughfare."

Joe Fuqua, a Huntsville architect who goes to Willowbrook, has come up with some conceptual designs for a new Madison campus. Perry said church leaders are still debating when to launch a capital campaign and begin construction.

"We're probably still a ways out from actually breaking ground," he said.

For now, Perry said, the church plans to "stabilize" the eroded Jeff Road property by bringing in fill dirt and planting grass seed. The Alabama Department of Environmental Management has also asked the church to put up a silt fence to stop mud from washing into a small tributary of Indian Creek that runs through the land.

According to a deed on file at the Madison County probate judge's office, Willowbrook paid Cadence Bank $860,000 for the Jeff Road property on Dec. 12.